The exercises we had to choose from today were the following:

look out your window and find the shape of faith. Write about it, explore the various shapes of meaning. For example, I see the Mexican sage plants purple blossoms, long and thin, seeming as if they are reaching for heaven. Or, in the round pot, or in the whole I find a whole, shaping completeness in the world.
try gazing into the water and determine what your strongest sense seems to be: smelling, seeing, hearing, touching, kinesthetic (body sense). Use streaming and write about how your strongest sense helps you with faith. The simple smell of clean sheets may trigger the feeling of life’s continuity, the faith in everyday tasks. Touching a pussy willow may remind you of your little brother’s soft hair and bring you back to faith in innocence.
write the phrase. “faith enriches my life” thirty times. In Buddhism, a repeated phrase like this is called a manta. Think of this mantra as a bookmark holding your developing faith while you read this book. Use streaming to explore how faith can enhance your life.

Faith enriches my life

The whole time I was typing this sentence and saying it in my head, all I could hear was the sound of palms on my djembe. The beat was similar to the sound of a very simple beat on my drum. After a while it becomes like a heartbeat and the separation between you and the drum just seems to fade. Even sitting here, I can still hear the drumbeat in my heart as I type one more time how faith enriches my life. I do not even need to open my eyes to look at the keyboard as I type. It is as if my eyes can see without even being open. The sound of the keyboard feels like a drumbeat as well. I am reminded of how I felt the first time I heard this all women’s drumming troupe, voices of Africa perform in Geneva, New York. I can still hear Nana saying to this primarily white audience how she was going to bring out the inner jungle in us. She did with me and I left there that night with my first drum and have been drumming intermittently ever since. It is one of those things that I do which makes me feel connected to the world and reminds me that I am part of something even bigger then myself. This is especially true when I am part of a drumming circle. There is this magic that happens when you are a part of a circle often times with people you do not know and then the beats and the rhythms begin to blend together and it is a reminder of how the world works, how we are all part of one universe, how we are all connected and how if we could function together as a drumming circle blending beat s and rhythms, this world would be on earth as it is in heaven, or at least as I envision it would be.

The funny thing is that if I had thought about my main sense before doing this exercise, I would have said it is kinesthetic, however, doing this exercise has helped me to realize this is definitely my strength. It is that whole listening to my body thing. I know when I am not supposed to go somewhere. i can feel it in my colon. I can literally feel my colon filling with gas when my body is warning me not to enter a relationship or go to an event or go down a certain rode. The funny thing is that the moment I listen to my body and say no to the situation, my stomach calms down. I remember one person in particular where my body would literally get sick. I would leave the house healthy and by the time I got to this place, I would be ill and throw up the majority of time we were there and be running a fever. By the time we got home, I was fine. Clearly, my body was telling me do not go here – leave me at home, do not go and I am reminded of that line from lost in space – warning will robinson – danger J. It is my connection to my body which for me is a reminder of how the Creator is working in my life. It is my reminder of how the Creator is within me communicating in a way that catches my attention in silent ways.

But there is this other type of connection, bodily that makes me realize that I am connected to something bigger and more wonderful then I can even imagine. It is these feelings, dreams, understandings, and sensations that I just have. I can not explain to anyone who I know what I know, but I do. I remember this one time, my former partner and I were arguing over whether or not someone was in town. She kept telling me this man was out of town for the weekend and I kept telling her he was in the city. On our way home, she told me she needed to drop something off at the church and there he was in the parking lot. How did you know she wanted to know, but I could not tell her, I just knew. Or the times I dreamed about someone being pregnant and they were. Or the time I knew my mom was going to pass away and I was going to funeralize her. I just knew. I could not explain my dreams and visions to anyone. They just are and it is these experiences that make me have faith in something so much greater then I can even envision.

Probably, the most recent had to do with my decision to start The Zenful Kitchen blog. Interestingly, I had been looking for a food blogging site for a friend of mine and an ad for the next food blogger appeared on my facebook page. Yes, I do believe the Creator uses facebook too J. So I set up my profile and started posting the two posts I had to The Zenful Kitchen. As I was, I remember feeling this sensation of excitement going through my entire body, including my right leg. This is important because I have not had any feeling in my right leg for almost four years now. It was as if the universe was saying in a way I could not deny, this is where I need for you to be. Even now, as I have been writing these reflections the past three days, I have felt this amazing calm and peace throughout my body. It is a reminder to me that all is well with my soul.

I have to laugh at myself sometimes because I was wondering would I ever be able to work my way up to the 30 minutes of daily writing and my problem now seems to be stopping. It seems with each day as if I have so much I want to say. It is like the snow falling outside my window. It starts off with one flake at a time and then before you know it the house, trees, lawn, ramp, and drive are covered with snow. It stops now and then, but then, as I am sure it will all winter, it starts up snowing again. And even in this I find comfort, that the love of the Creator is like the snow. It will always be there in someway – sometimes visible, sometimes transformed into a different shape (melting) and sometimes out of sight (summer, spring, and fall), but it s always there and will always provide me with evidence of its presence in my life one more time

Faith enriches my life

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